1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an integrated circuit card (hereinafter referred to as an IC card).
The convenience of IC cards for multi purpose usage, such as for banking, shopping, and travel services, etc., has encouraged a wide-spread use of these cards, which although having different nomenclatures, for example, Smart Card or Chip-in Card, provide identical facilities.
2. Description of the Related Art
As explained in detail hereinafter, the prior art IC card contains a processor, i.e., a central processing unit (CPU) and a memory, both packaged in a plastic plate as one body. The capacity of the memory is usually, for example, 8K bytes, but such memory capacity is not sufficient when the facilities provided by the IC card are to be expanded. As the large capacity memory, a laser memory card is separately proposed. The laser memory card has a memory which can be written and read by laser light. The capacity of the laser card is several million bytes. In the known art, however, this laser card is physically and logically separated from the IC card.
Namely, the laser memory can be used only when an external terminal machine, i.e., a card acceptance means, is available, and this, of course, is inconvenient when attempting to expand the facilities of the IC card.
Furthermore, as an advanced type of the IC card, IC card having a magnetic stripe thereon is proposed. In the system using such IC card, the information recorded on the magnetic stripe is read and handled by the other processor than that of internal processor of IC card. In such system, the internal processor only reads and handles an information stored in an internal memory of the card.